Release: InCatalog 3/4.2.4.1 for InDesign CS/CS2

December 6, 2007 by cpr

These notes cover all the InCatalog 3/4 release series.

Changes at 3/4.2.4.1 release

• Fixed a problem which caused attempts to export page references via scripting to result in the error “Spread #1 can’t be mapped to its constituent pages (internal error)”.
• Fixed a problem where the most-recently active DD set’s price style file wasn’t being read on startup. Reloading the DD in order to gain access to its price styles is no longer necessary.

Changes at 3/4.2.4 release

• Fixed a problem that in certain circumstances was slowing screen redrawing substantially, as well as causing drop shadows to draw incorrectly.
• Fixed a problem where the tagged text link tags (<cEmDataLink:...> and <tEmCellDataLink>) were being ignored on import.
• InCatalog no longer issues spurious “A link with global field ‘page’ was found on the pasteboard on spread 1, and thus has no associated page number.” warnings when updating data using a DD that specifies the page number qualifier [#].
• Fixed a problem where sending more than 256 characters to Microsoft Access via ODBC would result in a “Invalid precision value” error.
• Fixed an OS X 10.4 Get file dialog problem where some files with valid types or names were no longer being displayed as selectable. (Mac OS only)
• Fixed a Mac OS problem where filenames like myfile. (with a period but no extension) could crash our “get file” dialogs. (Mac OS only)
• Fixed a scripting issue that prevented the simultaneous setting of an initially empty text container’s contents and catalog link data properties without leaving a zero-width space around.
• Neighboring links are no longer joined into a single link when a link-containing text frame is dragged and dropped from a library. (CS2 only)
• Fixed a problem where InCatalog could crash if a document generated with a previous version of InDesign being opened in InDesign CS2 happened to contain text with catalog link-bearing zero-space-break characters. (InDesign CS2 only)
• Dragging grouped items (InCatalog linked or not) to a library or exporting grouped items to an INX file no longer causes InDesign to crash.
• Added support for CS2 snippets and libraries. Frame and text catalog links are now preserved in the snippet or library file and restored when the snippet or library item is reconstituted.
• Added support for Adobe’s InDesign Interchange file format in CS and CS2. Frame and text catalog links are now preserved through the interchange process.

• Added direct access to catalog links via scripting. We’ve added two new properties: “catalog DD set” and “catalog link data”.

  The “catalog DD set” property lives on the document, is read/write and contains the DD Set that is associated with the document. (It’s the DD set that was active when the document’s initial catalog link was applied.) It’s simply the name of the folder containing the DD files used by the document’s links. Setting this property is equivalent to selecting a new DD with the Alt/Option key held down.

  The “catalog link data” property lives on text, page items and table cells, is read/write and describes the link associated with that element. When getting the property you’ll receive either the “nothing” enumeration if there’s no active link or an ordered list of values: {DD name, key name, field name, key type, subfield, picture position, price style, is price, is tagged, convert quotes}. Getting the property from a text element containing more than one link will return only the first link.

  You may set the “catalog link data” property to either “nothing” (to remove/deactivate an existing link) or to a similar list of values:

  1. DD name (string) may be an explicit name or “default” to specify the application’s active DD.
  2. key name (string) may be an explicit key name or an empty string if no key is required for the specified key type. (This value is essentially ignored if key type resolves to a value other than key from link.)
  3. field name (string) must be a valid field name from the specified DD.
  4. key type (catalog key type enumeration) may be omitted (or “default”) if either the specified DD is active and the field’s DD entry provides a value via the L”x” qualifier or the key name value is a valid non-empty string. In the latter case, the key type defaults to key from link.
  5. subfield (integer) defaults to 0 (zero) for no subfield if omitted; otherwise, the one-based subfield.
  6. picture position (catalog picture position enumeration) defaults to “as is” if omitted.
  7. price style (string) defaults to an empty string unless the specified DD is active and the field’s DD entry provides a value via the P”style” qualifier.
  8. is price (boolean) defaults to false unless the specified DD is active and the field’s DD entry provides a value via the P, T, or U qualifier.
  9. is tagged (boolean) defaults to false unless the specified DD is active and the field’s DD entry provides a value via the P, T, or U qualifier.
  10. convert quotes (boolean) defaults to true unless the specified DD is active and the field’s DD entry provides a value via the T, or U qualifier. Only meaningful if is tagged is true; specifies whether straight quotes in tagged text should be converted to typographer’s quotes.

  A simple example, creating a link on the second word of the first story, with the document’s default DD set and key value of 1-100, linking the price field, would be:

  set catalog link data of word 2 of story 1 to {default, "1-100", "price"}

  If setting the catalog link data of a text element, note that the link will be applied to only that text element. The change will not be propagated to other text elements to which that same link may
  extend. For example, for the story:

  The qu[ick bro]wn fox.

  (where the [ ] denotes a link), the AppleScript statement

  set catalog link data of character 8 of story 1 to nothing

  would split the one link into two links, like

  The qu[i]c[k bro]wn fox.

  whereas the statement

  set catalog link data of word 2 of story 1 to  {default, "1-101", "partno"}

  would split the existing link into two adjoining links, like

  The [quick][ brown] fox.

  The Applescript statement

  set catalog link data of word 2 of story 1 to nothing

  would clear the link from only word 2, as in:

  The quick[ bro]wn fox.

  Note that this behavior differs from the UI (where a change to any part of a link affects the entirety of the link) and prevents neighboring links from being joined when imported from snippets.

Changes at 3.2.3/4.2.3 release

• Fixed a problem where the previous DD wouldn’t reload after quitting and restarting InDesign. (Windows only)
• Added support for Unicode price style files. The file must be prefaced with an appropriate byte order mark (BOM) in order for InCatalog to treat the text as Unicode. For example, the BOM for a UTF-8 encoded file would be the three character sequence 239 187 191.
• Fixed an intermittant problem where the checkboxes in the Create Data File… and Open Data File… dialogs could become un-selectable or would disappear entirely. (Windows only)
• Fixed a problem where InCatalog would crash when an image was encountered during a database update. (CS2 only)

Changes at 3.2.2/4.2.2 release

• The InCatalog 4.x series runs under InDesign Creative Suite 2 (CS 2).
• InCatalog now visits master spreads on a full-document update or extraction.
• Fixed a long-standing problem with DOS line-ends handling where the the LF of the CR LF sequence was being treated as part of the next record. Existing .x files created from data snapshots using DOS line-ends will need to be regenerated. If you’re importing data from a data file and notice that all fields are coming in empty, please close the data file, delete the data file’s .x file, then re-open the data file.
• Closing the tagging palette, closing the current document, opening a new document and re-opening the tagger no longer causes a crash.
• Added support for links in table header and footer cells.
• For data, DD, and price styles files, InCatalog now recognizes Unix/Mac OS X-style line-ends (a single line-feed, character 10) in addition to DOS and MacOS (Classic) line-ends.
• Extracting a plain (non-tagged) text field containing one or more style changes no longer elicits an out-of-memory error.
• Fixed a problem that was causing a crash when an update of a multi-page table left the table one or more pages shorter than it was prior to the update.
• Fixed an update problem where a paragraph style wasn’t being applied tothe final paragraph of a text field if that paragraph wasn’t terminated with a return character.
• Using the “no style” character or paragraph style in a tagged text field now works correctly.
• Worked around an InDesign CS problem where paragraph rules could conceal link markers.
• On startup, InCatalog now attempts to load any previously loaded DD silently (i.e. without UI), so if the DD was mounted on a foreign (server) volume and is no longer available, InCatalog will no longer “hang” InDesign forever. (Mac OS X only)
• Added the DD qualifier ‘ (single quote) to trigger forced quoting when extracting text fields through broken MacOS ODBC drivers that don’t properly quote bound data themselves.
• Selecting a layout guide no longer crashes InCatalog.
• Added on-line FileMaker Pro 7 support. (MacOS only)
• When extracting styled price data, InCatalog now ignores tracking as well as kerning changes. I.e., if you track or kern your prices, you no longer have to worry about InCatalog seeing the character property change as a whole/fractional break point.
• When updating unstyled prices (text links marked as prices but with style “None”), InCatalog is no longer fooled by an initial decimal point. E.g., when updating “.99”, InCatalog will now properly understand the whole part to be “” (empty) and the fractional part to be “99”. Before, it would assume the “99” was the whole part.
• Fixed a long-standing problem where changes to InCatalog’s shortcuts (in the UI Preferences dialog) wouldn’t stick unless InDesign’s Keyboard Shortcuts dialog had been opened first.